Home ‘where underage girl was abused’
THE two-bedroom mews house pictured above in an exclusive area of London is where Ghislaine Maxwell is alleged to have groomed an underage girl before allowing her paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein to abuse her.
The Mail on Sunday understands that the socialite owned the property in the mid-1990s when US prosecutors say the girl was abused at Maxwell’s ‘personal London residence’.
The indictment, released last week, says: ‘Maxwell groomed and befriended Minor Victim 3 in London, England, between approximately 1994 and 1995.
‘Maxwell introduced Minor Victim 3 to Epstein and during those interactions, Maxwell encouraged Minor Victim 3 to massage Epstein, knowing that Epstein would engage in sex acts with Minor Victim 3. During those massages, Epstein sexually abused Minor Victim 3.’
Maxwell, who has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s serial offending, is believed to have been living in Stanhope Mews East in South Kensington at the time.
Neighbours last night recalled her living at the property. It is thought to have been bought for her by her father, newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, two years before his death in November 1991.
Robert Greenwood, 90, who has lived in the mews for decades, said: ‘I remember when Robert Maxwell bought the property. He came up to me and asked if it was worth buying on this street. He told me he was buying it for his daughter, who was at university at the time.’
Mr Greenwood and his wife Kiki remember seeing Maxwell on the street until the mid-1990s, when she left the area. She reportedly moved to a house in Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, in 1997.
Maxwell is believed to have sold the three-storey property in South Kensington for £267,000. It was resold last August for £1.7 million.
Photographs of the interior, posted by estate agents last year, show a large living room and two big bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, though it may have been renovated since Maxwell was there.
The current owner said he was unaware that Maxwell once lived there. Asked about his property’s potential link to Epstein’s crimes, he said: ‘I just do not want to think about that.’
The now infamous photograph of Prince Andrew with his arm around Virginia Giuffre Roberts, aged 17 at the time, was taken at Maxwell’s Kinnerton Street house in 2001.
She is understood to still own the property.